Jason Mitchell

“Anybody who knows me knows that I'm just here to put a smile on people's faces.”

“I can remember being young and being outside and watch guys go through what they go through with the police, and old ladies come outside their house and be like, 'Oh, Lord, they're hitting him,' or whatever is happening. You see it right in front of your face.”

“I've got some stories to tell, and acting was a way I could express myself and not feel stupid. I fell in love with that.”

“I didn't know how capable I was until the people around me in acting school would say I was good.”

“I can do a backflip on the spot. I learned how from watching 'Ninja Turtles' movies as a kid. Whenever the Turtles got in trouble with their teacher, Master Splinter, he'd make them practice backflips as punishment - and I was so focused on becoming one of the Turtles that I taught myself how to do one, too.”

“I've done history; I've done biopics, I've done a little bit of comedy. I just want to keep going and show people that you can't typecast me, you can't pigeonhole me.”

“I auditioned for 'Pitch Perfect,' and I had to sing. It was terrible.”

“The skill set that I think we have as actors is so cool because they train you in ways that you never thought you'd be trained. And that's skills that they can't take back. So as you go further in your career, you can dump all these skills into things.”

“History is history, and it has to be told, and with 'Mudbound,' it's beautiful because you get to sit with both sides - the white and the black - and see where we meet each other at the end of the day and see where we tear each other apart.”

“I lived the street life for a minute; I lost a lot of friends.”

“As crazy as it may sound, it's like my tranquil place, where I sit, and I have my candy for a minute, and I just space out, and it's just me and my candy.”

“Growing up in New Orleans helped me live a real life. I experienced so many things.”

“Growing up in New Orleans and just being in a poverty-stricken neighborhood gave me that same fire that Eazy had to separate himself from what could have ended up being such a bad situation.”

“We've got to start making people uncomfortable in themselves and not being comfortable being racist or homophobic or any of that. We've got to cut that out from the inside.”

“I want to be able to speak to some real things.”

“To be honest, acting was something where I got a chance to be somebody else and forget about the situation I was in.”

“I'm very acrobatic. I can do backflips and all that crazy stuff.”

“I've got a friendly smile, a greeting smile, and a you-know-exactly-what-I'm-thinking smile.”

“I worked as a cook before starting acting.”

“John Goodman has such a good way of breaking the ice. He's so good at being himself. A lot of people aren't really good at that. He knows that he's a legend. He knows that he's one of the greatest.”